Friday, 24 April 2009

Staff at one of the largest lifelong learning centres in Wales say they have been stunned by moves to cut all teaching in the arts and humanities.

[...]In the letter from the university outlining its proposals, it states that in order to secure the centre's long-term future it is "likely to be necessary" to reduce course programmes to three areas: science, environment and computer studies; social sciences, including business; and modern foreign languages.

Tuesday, 7 April 2009

Does money from foreign donors come with strings attached? Dangerously so, according to research last week that claimed foreign governments have corrupted British universities and threatened their academic impartiality.

The report, A Degree of Influence, from the Centre for Social Cohesion, lists the millions of pounds that leading UK universities have accepted from donors in the Middle East, Asia and Russia. Robin Simcox, the report's author, says foreign donors that give enough money get a say in how things are run. "Edinburgh and Cambridge received £8m each from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia last year to set up Islamic studies centres," he says. "He gets to appoint as many as three or five members of the management committee."